Summary: A man, a woman and a grave. Krycek/Marita, Krycek/Other non-explicit slash.

TITLE: Elegy
AUTHOR: Belladonna
DISCLAIMER: I found them in the dumpster behind Fox.
Mine now. Of course, I'm still not making a cent off
of them.
PAIRING: Marita/Krycek, Krycek/Other (non-explicit
slash)
RATING: R maybe?
SPOILERS: Patient X/The Red and The Black, Two
Fathers/One Son, Requiem, DeadAlive, Existence.
KEYWORDS: Marita, angst
FEEDBACK: Don't make me beg. belladonna81575@yahoo.com
THANKS: To Rachelle for telling me it didn't suck! In
all seriousness, she's been trying for ages to get to
me actually finish and post something. This is for
her, for being my cheerleader. ;-) Also to KimberlyFDR
for a gracious early proofread and an argument. And,
lastly, to Erika for a final beta. It's lovely finding
a Marita fan where you didn't expect one!
More notes at end.

SUMMARY: A man, a woman and a grave.

---

Marita stood, her eyes locked on the gray marble
headstone before her. "Alexis Petor Krycek". No other
words beside the dates. No "beloved husband", no
"honored father", no "loving son". He was none of
those things, yet, at the same time, he was all of
them. He was a contradiction in many ways. They both
were. Marita and Alex were not quite enemies, but they
were barely allies. There were too many mutual
betrayals, too many dark nights alone in individual
hells. But Rita and Sasha.they had been lovers, nearly
spouses, nearly parents, and loving children to
families that could not appreciate them for what they
were. Men and women of the Syndicate; who were willing
to trade on the lives of their children to advance
their own positions.

"Ms. Covarrubias?"

The deep voice didn't startle her. Marita had been
half expecting him since she first heard of Alex's
death; of his murder. She had wondered if he would
come. "I thought you might show up."

"I almost didn't. I didn't know if it was.right." He
paused, stepping closer to the edge of the newly
filled in grave. "I didn't know if I'd be welcome
here."

"Whether or not I want you here, he probably would
have."

They stood in silence, their eyes locked on the fresh
wound in the ground before them. When confronted with
the glaring wrongness of all that dark raw dirt
marring the gently rolling curve of the hillside
Marita found herself remembering the ugliness of the
damage to Alex's smooth pale forehead. It was terrible
to see him laid out on that cold slab, the harsh
scarred edges of his maimed arm on display for all to
see, the shattered prosthetic laying next to his body.
His good arm had also been appallingly injured, the
elbow blown to pieces by the FBI issue bullet that sat
in a small glass vial on the table. It was now
evidence in a murder case that would never see a
trial, never see the much-deserved punishment. She'd
seen the tape. It was nothing more then murder, as
cold as any job Alex himself had ever performed for
the Syndicate.

The tape had been delivered, along with the news of
Alex's demise by a low-level lackey, a thug, in the
Syndicate. To Them, Alex's death was not even worthy
of an important messenger to bear the news. The man
had been greasy and dark; and the whole time he had
stood before her, relaying the news, his eyes had been
on the swell of Marita's breasts under the harsh and
concealing lines of her navy suit. She had thought,
automatically, 'Sasha will kill you for looking at me
like that'; before her mind reminded the tiny remnants
of Rita that still lived within her aching heart that
Sasha; and now Alex were no more. He had seemed
disappointed when she didn't weep and throw herself to
the carpet, prostrate with grief. But Marita had
learned to grieve quietly, alone, in the dark. She
would do so for Alex in her own time, and not under
the greedy gaze of some hired thug.

Alex had always led a violent life. Together, and
separately, the two of them had fought against
colonization, against the plans that had been so
carefully worked out by their fathers. Both of them
knowing that it was hopeless, that there was no
fighting the future; but both unwilling to concede
defeat without a battle. They had learned to fight
together, and, in the end, it might have been the only
thing that held them to each other.

In her more angry moments Marita thought that perhaps
it was fitting that his end had been so violent and so
very unnecessary. But, the rest of the time, she wept
for him at night. For the life he didn't have. For the
life they didn't get together.

She couldn't get the vision of his broken body out of
her mind. He was the same Alex she had always known,
but at the same time, he was also different. The time
in prison had stripped all of the excess weight from
his frame, honing him to a sharpness that she had not
expected. Beyond that, when she had shown up to get
him in Tunisia, her rage and near hate at his betrayal
at Fort Marlene still burning so hotly inside of
her.there was no hint of the boy he had once been in
the sharp planes of his face. It had startled her for
just a moment, that the man she saw bore such little
resemblance to the Sasha she had loved. She had
examined him all weekend, unable to stop herself, her
eyes on the curve of his cheek, the line of his jaw,
the new scars on his body. She had silently watched
Alex for any hint of Sasha until he had turned to her
on the plane to New York and childishly snapped at her
to keep her eyes to herself. In that single moment,
Alex and Marita fell away, and only Sasha and Rita
remained. She stopped seeing the pared down man in
front of her, the lines around his eyes disappeared,
and he looked, once again, like he had the day he
first kissed her in the old rope swing behind her
parent's summer house in New Hampshire. Young, nearly
beautiful, and happy in a way it was not possible for
either of them to be happy anymore.

In many ways, that one childish barb had unified them
in a way that they hadn't been since Marita had stolen
the boy from him in New York. They both understood for
the first time in a long time that they were on the
same side with the same goals. She'd watched in awe as
his eyes had softened as they looked at her, losing
the resentment and rage as well as the thick layer of
ice that he'd managed to hold onto over the years. She
knew that in that moment he was seeing her with longer
hair, nearly to her waist, the yellow braid as thick
as her wrist blowing out behind her as he pushed her
in the swing.

That single moment allowed the two of them to go to
the Smoking Man, to present a unified front. To not be
used against each other. She knew that was what
Spender had wanted all along. To turn the childhood
sweethearts against each other, to show them that he
had all the power. Alex Krycek had one weakness.
Marita.

In that single instant, on that plane, she
realized that if she was going to stop being used as a
pawn to keep him in check she had to tell Alex
everything. And so she had. And, if she lived to be a
hundred years old, she would never forget the softness
of Alex's voice as he spoke to her that day as well as
the way he had unconsciously put himself between her
and Spender. Between her and the danger in the room.

She was jerked out of her reverie as the man that
stood next to her spoke again. "I didn't think you'd
be here."

"Why not? He was mine." Her words were very soft, her
mind's eye still seeing the way the bright sunshine
had glinted in his emerald eyes that day, his head
thrown back as their laughter filled the warm air.

"Yours?"

The shock in his voice broke through her sadness and
sparked her anger again. The same decades old rage
that had been lying dormant since she first heard how
Alex had died. Rage at losing him, at losing herself.
Of loving him still, no matter how many times they had
betrayed and tried to destroy each other.

"Mine." Her eyes blazed with fire as she spun to face
him. "Alex was mine long before he knew you even
existed. No matter who else he was ever with, for
whatever reason.he was always mine where it counted."

"I'd like to think that he loved me a little." The man
had his own share of sadness in his voice.

Marita finally realized that he had his own demons
about whom and what Alex was as well as how he died.
For some reason that only angered her more. He didn't
have the right. He only had a few years with Alex.
She'd had a lifetime. She wanted to hurt him in that
instant. To make him bleed as she felt she was
bleeding onto the raw ground. To rip every memory of
Alex out of his heart and his mind. To take all of him
back for herself.

"Alex Krycek never loved anyone. He wasn't capable of
it. You're just fooling yourself if you think he
returned what you felt for him."

"But Sasha loved once, didn't he?" There was no
reproach in his voice. Instead there was something
unidentifiable and sad.

Her anger surged again, the heat climbing further up
her spine. "You have no right to call him Sasha! You
never knew Sasha, only Alex. Sasha died a very long
time ago."

"He died about the same time Rita did, didn't he?" he
asked, his voice once again heavy with sadness.

The weight of her own loss hit her again, blowing away
the slightly hazy memories of their lives Before.
Marita felt her anger draining away with the memories,
leaving her belly hollow and empty. She felt older
than she ever had. Older even then she felt the day
she had left Fort Marlene, a shell of a human being
barely able to shuffle along behind the smoking man
like a faithful dog. "Rita died the day she felt their
baby slip out of her body in a rush of blood. It was
that day she came to realize that there could be no
happily ever after fairy tale endings in their lives.
But Sasha.he was strong even through that. He didn't
die until the day that They put a gun in his hands and
made him use it to defend her."

The man laid a long fingered graceful hand on her
slight shoulder, squeezing gently. "Will you tell me
something about him? About Sasha? And, perhaps, a
little about Rita and how things began?"

"There's nothing to tell." With a last longing glimpse
at the cold bare headstone Marita turned away, barely
aware of the man's hand dropping from her shoulder to
her elbow.

"Please Marita.I need." Emotion choked his voice into
a sound very much like a sob, and he swallowed
painfully before beginning again. "I need to know. I
need it so that I can lay him to rest myself. I want
to know who he was before everything happened.
Please."

"It's not my story to tell." She half turned her head,
as if to look back at the freshly filled grave one
last time, but stopped herself with a shudder. "It
is.was.our story. It shouldn't be left to only one of
us."

"That's what he said." Marita looked up in shock, his
eyes meeting his. "He said that he couldn't tell me
about Sasha without telling me about Rita. And he
wouldn't betray you like that."

"He never told you?"

"He once said that Sasha loved Rita more then he ever
thought it was possible to love someone. But that Alex
and Marita weren't always on the same side."

"We were always on the same side. Always. We just
didn't always know it."

She knew that the man beside her had never been on the
same side as Alex. He had spoken of it once, very late
at night, at her apartment in New York. Alex had
something close to awe in his voice as he spoke of
him. 'Marita.he sees something different when he looks
at me. It's like he wants me so much.cares so much
that he is willing to stop being who he is to be with
me.' She had turned his words about the man next to
her over and over in her mind.even more often now that
Alex was truly gone. She wished she had still been
able to love Alex that much. She tilted her head, her
eyes resting on the graceful looking hands clasp
together in front of the man next to her. Hands that
had touched the man she loved. Hands that held him as
he slept. Hands that had loved him. Capable hands.
Strong hands.

"Then help me now Marita. Help me find out who he was
before they got their claws into him. Help me know
Sasha." His voice was impassioned, hoarse with
emotion. "Help me to finish what he started. What you
both started all those years ago."

Her blond head barely moved in acknowledgement. "I'll
help you. If only because someone should know their
story. Someone should know how much they loved, how
much they meant to each other. How they deserved to be
together forever." Her green eyes were anguished as
she looked up. "But not here. Not in this place of the
dead. I'm so tired of being cold.let's go someplace
warm."

He let go of Marita's elbow as she walked though the
grass to a dark blue sedan. "Get in." She commanded
softly, climbing in behind the wheel.

They drove off, both of them silently watching Alex's
grave growing smaller and smaller in their mirrors. At
the gate to the cemetery Marita brought the car to a
slow halt. She didn't speak, just laid her head down
the steering wheel.

"Is there something wrong?"

Marita had to choke back a sick laugh at his words. He
was worried about her? Now? After she had berated him
for coming to his lover's grave? "I lied."

"About what?"

"Alex did love you, John. He told me so." When she
finally raised her and risked a look towards the
passenger seat John Doggett sat perfectly still, his
head leaning back against the seat, eyes tightly
closed, hands clenched into fists resting on his
thighs. Marita couldn't tell if it was anger or
sadness. "He once said that when he met
you.after.well, he said that sometimes you made him
stop regretting that he wasn't Sasha anymore. He said
that when he was with you it was okay to just be
Alex."

Without another word she put the car back in gear and
pulled through the wrought iron gates of the cemetery.
Several blocks later John finally spoke, his voice
rough, as if he were fighting tears. "Thank you."

She simply nodded, acknowledging to the both of them
that the information should have been his to begin
with. It was childish to withhold it out of some sense
of anger or fear. Sasha was hers. Alex was hers. The
two-man and boy; killer and lover, in the same person.
He always had been hers, and he always would be.

Marita was shocked to find her hands turning the wheel
towards her apartment. She hadn't thought it out;
bringing someone whom should be an enemy to her to
homeplace. But it had been unconscious up to now,
maybe because some part of her knew that at this
moment, on this day, John Doggett was not a FBI Agent.
Not a former cop and Marine. He was simply J.D.; as
Alex had once called him in an unguarded moment; a man
who had lost his lover.

For this day they were partners in their grief for a
single man who had led two lives. Marita lost her
Sasha, the only man she had ever loved, the only one
she had ever let call her Rita; and John had lost a
man whom he loved so much that he was willing to
subvert his job, his code of honor for. She remembered
Alex's words when he showed up, beaten and bruised,
one night at her apartment. He had seemed almost
jovial. That seemed strange on it's own, and more so
when Alex had said that John Doggett was the one who
had inflicted the damage. Alex had seemed happy as he
relayed the story of the parking garage at the
hospital. He had given the vaccine to Mulder
anyway-they needed him alive; but Doggett and Skinner
both thought he had not. And Doggett was willing to go
against Alex; to take what he needed from him.
Somehow, to Alex, the fact that John was willing to
still do what needed to be done, even if he had to
take down his lover to do it, made what the two of
them had seem more real. More normal. More honest. It
meant that he hadn't changed Doggett completely; meant
that he hadn't made the man into what he was. A
traitor.

The two of them, Marita and John Doggett, were the
most unlikely of allies.perhaps secondary only to the
individual alliances that Alex had held with both of
them at once. And, suddenly, Marita knew that bringing
this man into her life, into her home, into her past,
into her Before Life as Rita, and into Sasha's past
was not only the right thing to do. It was the only
thing.

As she pulled into the parking garage for her building
Marita Covarrubias smiled slightly, knowing that she
would soon be able to share her memories about her
Sasha with someone else. Someone who loved him as much
as she did. After all, Sasha and Alex were the same at
the foundation, weren't they? And, if that were true;
if John had gotten a few small glimpses of Sasha in
Alex, then perhaps Rita wasn't completely gone either.
Perhaps there was still a way to get her back.

Maybe she could be Sasha's Rita again someday. She
remembered Sasha's words to her after she lost the
baby. 'Of course it's going to be tough. Survival is
not mandatory Rita. You have to want it.'

She finally wanted it.

END

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As someone who once shed her name like
a snake sheds its skin, I understand the significance,
the impact, and the amazing power inherent in the
naming of something. For me, taking a new name was the
chance to make a fresh start, to leave the past
behind. For this Marita taking back her "before name"
is a chance to reclaim a part of her life that was
lost to her. And the person who helped make her who
she is.